Chains
A link of sordid, violent events,
Held together by hooks of pain
forming a formidable, unbroken force,
Like thick wire chains,
Clanking, dangling, and then firmly affixed.
Restraining, shackling, by its weight,
The people.
Encircling, holding back,
Binding firmly, and condemning
human souls to perpetual pain.
Chains.
Victims are carried away,
Like linked animals from neck to neck,
Stacked together, all shackled.
To shuffle along ingloriously, like
Beasts of burden, muffled with bits,
like the days of real sorrow,
Stowed like ants in a furrow
in the belly of cars to hidden joints.
Then kept in dangerous dwellings in the forest,
To sweat and worry countless hours, or
Long days, or even weeks in the fortress,
Like caged animals, tamed;
To lift another to incredible wealth
From ransom cash.
Chains.
Connected links, indissoluble, stuck.
Holding a people in bondage;
Shackled by poverty, decadence and greed,
Crime, senseless crime, explodes in rage,
Creating--human--
Chains
Links, secured by wickedness in high places,
leaving a trail on the rough terrain, with
Linked souls dragging in the dust,
Unleashing despair and pain.
A caravan, driven by pettiness,
and greed for power and gain.
Surrounded by buffoonery,
Urged on by a symphony
Of players of different tunes,
Blending in mournful harmony
like howling jackals hungry for meat--
Power, position, control and wealth.
Chains.
The hired criminals abound, petty criminals too,
descending daily on their victims
Like vicious bees, hungry for nectar,
Oozing from tree hollows in links;
Like chains, tumbling out of storage bins.
They fall on their prey, now
to the hard terrain pinned.
Chains--
Politics, power, money, jobless youth mix,
to hold and shackle Nigerians,
Like chains.